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History and Current Events August 2026 |
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Recent Releases, New Arrivals, and Staff Picks |
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Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City
by Stella Dong
Transformed from a swampland wilderness into a dazzling, modern-day Babylon, the Shanghai that predated Maos cultural revolution was a city like no other: redolent with opium and underworld crime, booming with foreign trade, blessed with untold wealth and marred by abject squalor. Journalist Stella Dong captures all the exoticism, extremes, and excitement of this legendary city as if it were a larger-than-life character in a fantastic novel.
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View from the East Wing: A Memoir
by Jill Biden
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Included in The Nonfiction Books Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer by The New York Times A novelist once wrote, There are stories one must tell, and years when one must tell them. Jill Biden's time to discuss her four years in the White House is now. Jill Biden became First Lady at a complicated moment in US history, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the shadow of the January 6 insurrection. These were the circumstances under which she set up office in the East Wing, where she hit the ground running. Throughout her husband's presidency, Jill remained a tireless advocate for her causes, including women's health, military families, vaccine awareness, cancer initiatives, and education. She made history as the first-ever First Lady to hold an outside job while her husband was in office, continuing to work as a professor at a nearby community college. Yet all the while, she saw herself as an ordinary woman living an extraordinary life. In View from the East Wing, Jill shares her White House experiences for the first time, in her own words. She reflects on the Biden presidency and its impact on her family. She brings you behind the scenes, from Camp David to Air Force One, from grading papers in the Rose Garden to witnessing the abrupt end of her husband's bid for reelection. This is the story of a woman dedicated to her roles as a wife, mother, grandmother, teacher--and First Lady of the United States.
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American Patriarch: The Life of George Washington
by H. W. Brands
From historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands comes an inspiring portrait of George Washington that examines his unrivaled leadership in the birth of America. With this masterly volume, Brands has further solidified his standing as one of our nation's greatest historians. American Patriarch is by turns brilliant and bold. --Justin Vaughn, founder and director of the Presidential Greatness Project From his early military career and role among the Virginia gentry, to his leadership during the American Revolution and reluctant return to public service as the first president of the United States, American Patriarch brings to life the man who was called on time and again by his peers to lead. With a dazzling cast of characters--from the French and Indians on the Ohio frontier; to the Marquis de Lafayette, Benedict Arnold, and Baron von Steuben on the revolutionary battlefield; to Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton locked in conflict during his presidency--American Patriarch casts Washington as the icon of American virtue who wrested America free from British control, gave credibility to the Constitution, and crafted the norms that would steady America as a nation for generations to follow. Arriving in time for the 250th anniversary of American independence, this is a masterful portrait of Washington as the unrivaled leader of his times.
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| The Cruelty of Nice Folks: Why Minneapolis Is the Story of America by Justin EllisIn his sweeping debut that blends family history with exposé, journalist and Minnesota native Justin Ellis chronicles two centuries of anti-Black racism in Minneapolis, Minnesota, culminating in the 2020 murder of George Floyd. It's an "urgent critique of 'polite' racism that demands attention" (Kirkus Reviews). Further reading: Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm by Robin DiAngelo. |
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The American School of Spies: The Archaeologists Who Fought the Nazis and Saved the Treasures of Ancient Greece
by Stephan Talty
From the New York Times bestselling author, the incredible true story of the American archaeologists and classicists who went undercover as OSS spies during World War II to fight the Nazis and protect the world's most precious relics In 1942, as head of the newly formed OSS, Wild Bill Donovan deployed spies across Europe and around the world to try to thwart the Nazis. In Greece, Nazis weren't just taking over territory; they were seizing and threatening to destroy some of the world's most important and valuable historical monuments and artifacts. So, Donovan tapped a young Ivy League-trained archaeologist named Rodney Young to assemble and lead a team of spies to collect intel. Young set about recruiting the most unlikely of spies--academics, classicists, epigraphers, and other specialists and scholars--who would come to be kown as the Greek Desk. These men and women, along with their Greek allies, went undercover and tried desperately to protect some of the world's most significant treasures. The archaeologists hid priceless artifacts in ancient caves, bank vaults, and even underneath the city of Athens itself. They created fakes to give over to the Nazis to appease their lust for these remarkable works. Ultimately, when it became clear the cat-and- mouse game on its own wasn't going to save Athens, they brought in an army of Greek American soldiers to beat back the Nazi regime and save their homeland.
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Athens and Sparta: The Rivalry That Shaped Ancient Greece
by Adrian Goldsworthy
From an award-winning historian, the definitive history of classical Greece and the rivalry between its two greatest cities. Packed with intrigue and the politics of empire, revolution, and war, this accessible history of a tangled relationship between nations might strike some readers, the author warns, as 'uncomfortably relevant.' --New York Times No period has more profoundly influenced the Western world than classical Greece, and at its center stood two cities: Athens and Sparta. Side by side, they beat the Persians, the only superpower of that age. Yet later, they spread conflict and destruction throughout the eastern Mediterranean, culminating in the horrors of the Peloponnesian War. Athens and Sparta tells the definitive history of the relationship between brutal, militaristic Sparta and brash, radically democratic Athens. Eminent historian Adrian Goldsworthy narrates their incredible rise to prominence and how they became allies, rivals, and enemies. Ultimately, Goldsworthy shows that Athens and Sparta were more than competitors vying for power. They were polar opposites in ideology and culture, both driven by the Greek longing to excel, who led radically different experiments in how to run a state. A remarkable account of ancient Greece at its height, this is the tale of the two cities that helped build it--before almost tearing it apart.
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Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
by Eleanor Barraclough
Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice A Times (UK) Best History Book of the Year Endlessly fascinating, authoritatively informative and, above all, great fun. --Heather O'Donoghue, Times Literary Supplement A brilliantly written, brilliantly conceived (Tom Holland) history of the Viking Age, from mighty leaders to rebellious teenagers, told through their runes and ruins, games and combs, trash and treasure.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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